


Ghost Stories: My Name Is...

by em_the_cliche



Series: Ghost Stories [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Series, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 02:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5768353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_the_cliche/pseuds/em_the_cliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, on the quieter days in the Slytherin common room, you’d see her. She keeps to herself, and any student that tries to approach her is ignored. She seems to look beyond the children that are curious enough, not seeing their faces, not hearing their questions. Some who pester her enough with their remarks or comments are rewarded with her eyes flicking on to them, hand twitching. These students leave, not knowing what is to come next, more silence or a violent outburst. But one, one student remained, in the many decades that have been her death, only one student. <br/>Second Story in my Anthology: Ghost Stories</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Stories: My Name Is...

Sometimes, on the quieter days in the Slytherin common room, you’d see her. She keeps to herself, and any student that tries to approach her is ignored. She seems to look beyond the children that are curious enough, not seeing their faces, not hearing their questions. Some who pester her enough with their remarks or comments are rewarded with her eyes flicking on to them, hand twitching. These students leave, not knowing what is to come next, more silence or a violent outburst. But one, one student remained, in the many decades that have been her death, only one student. 

The student was a first year named Irma Crabbe. Irma looked brutish, keeping the other Slytherin girls (being a vaguely shallow lot) from talking to her. She saw the ghost, mad eyes glazed, knees drawn up to his chin, and approached it. No one alive talked to the young Crabbe, so in her eyes it was sound logic that maybe the dead would.

“Hello.” No reply, as per usual. However, she cast his eyes onto her, hand once again twitching.   
“What is your name, ma’am?” She blinked once, and to her surprise, let out a bark of laughter. Irma took a step back, chewing her lip nervously.  
“Ma’am? No one’s called me that since I was alive. I’m not that old! Ma’am? Really?” Her eyes were clear, something that had been unseen since her appearance as a ghost.  
“Your name?” Irma smiled, “Ma’am?”  
Her glazed eyes crinkled up with laughter.  
“Isla. Isla Black.” Irma took a step backwards, frowning slightly. A moment of silence passed, pressing down on both the living and dead.  
“I’ve heard of you. You’re that Black, the one that married a,” Her lip sneered in disgust, saying the word like it was poison, “… a muggle.” Black’s ghost looked down, her form seeming to curl in on herself even more.   
“Yes.” She looked up at Irma, eyes hard. “I did, and I will never regret it. I loved him.” She turned away. “Leave.” Irma looked to speak again, but Isla ignored any other signs of her presence. Irma sighed, turned, and walked away.

{HP}

The next time Irma saw Black, she was in her fourth year at Hogwarts, and facing the prospect of marrying the next Head of Black, Pollux. Her parents had already started discussions of an alliance to solidify the bond between the Black family and the Crabbe. The prospect was daunting, to say the least. She was walking down the dank corridors near the dungeons when she saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned, curious, and walked towards the unknown shape. It was a ghost, with long black hair and a silvery-white wound in the small of her back. Irma shifted on her feet, uncomfortable in the ghost’s presence and the ever-dripping wound that faced her. She cleared her throat nervously, the ghost not responding to the echoing noise. 

“You…” The ghost of the woman did not turn, remaining hunched over whispering quietly. “You were stabbed…in the back.” The ghost snapped her head around, her beady eyes narrowed, jaw clenched.   
“Of course. Courtesy of my dear uncle, madman as he is.” She shook her head. “…Was. A curse wasn’t good enough for me, he said. I chose to live with a ‘filthy muggle’, so I died a ‘filthy muggle’ way. Poetic, he said.” Irma stepped towards the incorporeal figure, pity in her eyes.   
“I’m sorry… He stabbed you, in the back?” The ghost rose, smiling bitterly.   
“Naturally. Robert was…” She sighed, affection in her eyes. “Robert, my husband, was always such a scatter-brain. Never locking the door, the poor fool.” She laughed, eyes glimmering with nostalgic love.   
“He just, came in, and?” Irma stared in horror.  
“I don’t remember much. It was quite a while ago. But…” She halted, shaking her head in sadness. “I remember enough. His hot breath in my ear, taunting me, insulting me. I was so angry, so…confused. They exiled me, banished me, disowned me, wasn’t that enough for them? Wasn’t my humiliation enough for them?”  
“Nothing is ever enough for purebloods.” Irma looked down at her feet. Isla stared at her, tilting her head.  
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”   
“…” Irma looked up with pity and sorrow in her eyes.   
“Don’t look like that. You’re young! You’re alive. I’m not. So live.” Isla smiled, but Irma merely frowned.  
“Why back here? Why back at all?”  
“I was so angry. And where else would I go? My place of death, to haunt the one I truly loved until he died in sorrow and regret? My childhood home, where my murderer dined and laughed? No, there was only one place to stay. Hogwarts. It was my home for seven years. Not my happiest years…”   
“What were your happiest years?”  
She smiled, and her answer did not surprise Irma.  
“Those precious years I spent with Robert. There were so few, too few. But, I suppose… there were enough.”   
“You loved him.”  
“No, I love him. That’s why I stayed. I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t go. What a fool I was. Now I will never see him.”

Irma snorted with derision, and the ghost of Isla Black frowned.  
“Is there something funny with my misfortune?” Irma clenched her jaw, her heavy-lidded eyes seeming to widen.  
“No… it’s just rather sickeningly sweet, isn’t it?” Irma laughed crudely, her dull grey eyes lit with mirth. “You fall in love with a muggle, elope, marry for love, and then die tragically. It’s like one of those horrid romance novels.” Isla smiled, she could certainly see the humour in it. But then she noticed something about Irma’s statement.  
“You seem rather…sickened by the thought of marrying for love. Why?” Isla frowned in confusion. She knew purebloods rarely married ‘for love’, but the way she carefully growled on the words was quite odd.

“My father is already marrying me off. I shouldn’t be surprised, but…” Irma sighed, slouching in despair, leaning against the dank flame-lit wall. “I always imagined my marriage as something different, don’t know why. I just feel sorry for my future children. But then, the Blacks haven’t been the most beautiful people in the world, have they?” She jolted, suddenly realizing who she was talking to, exclaiming a quick rushed apology and hurrying back through the corridor, back the way she came. Isla let out a protest, but then stopped to consider her words. She was marrying a Black? In her day, Phineas would rather kill himself and his siblings then have them marry a family so low on the social hierarchy. Maybe it was a joke at her expense. She was certainly used to purebloods doing that once they knew who she was. She sighed, floating through the wall into another darkly lit corridor.

{HP}

Irma Crabbe saw the apparition of Isla Black one last time, on the eve of her final NEWT. She absent-mindedly twisted the intricate ring on her finger as she flicked through the pages of her Ancient Runes textbook, her head aching dully. She put her textbook down and ran a hand through her hair, sighing loudly.   
There was a cough behind her. She turned around in shock to see the ghostly figure of Isla Black. She was on the verge of laughter, and Irma raised her eyebrows in questioning.  
“…There’s wax dripping onto your notes. There has been for the past hour.” 

Irma frowned and then turned back around to her roll of ink-covered parchment and noticed, to her annoyance that there was a large pool of slowly cooling wax on the upper corner of her page, obscuring her notes about “the use of runes in wards and protective sigils, focusing on the process of imbedding such runes into magical objects”. She carefully pushed the incriminating candle away from the stained parchment and grimaced.

“How long exactly have you been here exactly?”  
“Since you began whispering nonsense encouragements to yourself, which was about an hour and seventeen minutes ago.”   
“You’re in a surprisingly cheerful mood…” Isla grinned darkly.  
“I was just around the common room when I heard from my brother’s grandson that my sister in law is finally dead!”  
“…That’s something to celebrate?”  
“She was a nasty piece of work. And she was my cousin, so…” She trailed off, smiling bitterly, her glassy eyes wide and glinting with amusement.  
“So?”  
“Only one to go…”  
“…What?”  
“Three siblings dead, one to go. Sirius was always a survivor.” Irma gave her a look of horror, stepping backwards away from the mad ghost.   
“Don’t you care for life at all?” Isla let out a bark of laughter, eyes crazed.  
“I’m dead! Why should I care for life? And why theirs? That family, my family took away everything from me, everything! And yet I should be sad, I should grieve over those things that tore my life apart, I should grieve over people who would murder because of their so-called superiority? Toujours Pur indeed! NO! I refuse to ‘forgive and forget’; I refuse to ‘let it go’! Why should I, Irma Crabbe? Why?”

Irma stood shocked at her outburst, simply gaping at the ranting ghost, before saying calmly,

“Because you’re no better than them if you don’t. And I’ll pretend I didn’t hear your comment on superiority.” She stood there, head tilted towards the ghost. “That’s why you ‘came back’. You couldn’t go.” Isla regarded her words, and smiled sadly.  
“Yes, I suppose so.” She then smiled wryly and added, “And I’ll ignore your comment about my comment on Pureblood superiority.” Irma smiled in return, gesturing to her books.  
“I better get back to this. I have an exam tomorrow.”  
“Need help? I was quite good at Ancient Runes, though I suppose much has changed…” Irma frowned, shaking her head. It was quite odd how her mood swung from anger to sadness to joy. As if reading her thoughts, Isla sighed and said,  
“I am lonely, Miss Irma Crabbe. I have always been lonely, and after you leave I think I shall be lonely once more. I have never said anything about my life, about my feeling. I am just ‘that blood traitor’ to be ignored.” Irma paused, looking at the apparition with pity. The silence that lay across the room in that moment was suffocating.   
“I don’t think I could ever ignore you, you shout much too loud.” Isla laughed. She then noticed the ornate ring on Irma’s finger.  
“You are engaged?”   
“I guess I could call you my ‘Great Aunt In-Law’.” Isla blinked in shock, her mind processing the remark.  
“So you’re part of the family now? I’m so sorry.”   
“You really shouldn’t talk like that…”  
“Really? I’m dead, aren’t I? If I talk a certain way, it really doesn’t matter.” Isla laughed, but Irma’s frown deepened.  
“Blood is blood, and I am now part of that. Even if that doesn’t matter to you…” Irma ran a hand over her face. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you…” Isla rolled her eyes, huffing with annoyance.  
“Are we running in circles or what? I shouldn’t be talking to you, and I talk to you, so you talk to me, but you shouldn’t be talking to me, and you talk to me, so I talk to you, but…” Irma held out a hand, cutting her off.  
“I understand; you don’t have to repeat it that much.”  
“Really? Because you don’t seem to be getting the message.” Irma sighed and turned back to desk, sitting down.  
“I’m sorry. Goodbye.” Isla stared at her back as she picked up a quill and began to write once more. She opened her mouth to insult, but stopped, sighing.  
“….For what it’s worth? I’m sorry too.” She floated out of the room, eyes downcast and shoulders slumped.

{HP}

Isla Black, or rather, the ghost of Isla Black never saw Irma again. So she waited.

And waited.

The years passed slowly, as they often did. She saw many Blacks walk the halls, so many with the same dark hair, many with the same dark eyes, and many with the same sneer her lovely family so often possessed. They all sported the same green and silver tie, though some occasionally wore blue. 

And still, she waited.

She saw a war come and go, saw the Blacks hold their head high as they so often did. They shook off any claim of them being on the ‘wrong’ side. The ‘losing’ side. But the whispers in the Slytherin Common room told another story altogether.

And still, she waited.

She saw a time of peace, where everything was right, and everything was changing. The Blacks still kept their head up, as did the Crabbes, the Flints, the Bulstrodes, the Malfoys. But they were drowning in an ever steady rising tide of change and the death of tradition. They struggled to stay afloat. But with the sea of change came new powers. A new way.

And still she waited.

She saw the time of the magical society assert itself once more, the waves of change now leveling out. And with it, she saw a young boy with dark hair and dark, heavy lidded eyes sit atop a stool and grin when it yelled out “GRYFFINDOR!” And she saw him wear his gold and red tie with pride.

And then, she wasn’t waiting anymore.

“Hello. My name is Isla. Isla Hitchens.”


End file.
